


beyond the kingdom of light

by Coordinator



Category: Lobotomy Corporation (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, It just kind of happened, ambiguous consent ambiguous ending ambiguous EVERYTHING, i do not even know if this is a love story
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-04
Updated: 2020-03-04
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:47:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 6,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23017243
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Coordinator/pseuds/Coordinator
Summary: A short, self-contained story about loneliness and need.Terribly allegorical and vague, especially the ending, which deviates SIGNIFICANTLY from canon...Sort of.
Relationships: Binah/Carmen (Lobotomy Corporation)
Comments: 6
Kudos: 9





	1. memory

**Author's Note:**

  * For [keizh](https://archiveofourown.org/users/keizh/gifts).



When you asked for a favour, it was necessary to show your humility.  
  
Those foolish enough to beseech the Head for mercy could find it at any given time. The path to power was not _difficult,_ she mused, but merely one that people rarely chose to follow.  
  
But those who chose to beg for scraps would often fall to their knees.  
They would grab and tear at their hair; they would plead for mercy, or cry, or vomit.  
And those that didn't...  
  
It was a room that had been paved over numerous times.  
And it was a room that might as well have been built on bones.  
  
Yet the woman with her mane of burnished brown hair didn't seem to notice.  
No; she noticed just fine, but it didn't seem to register.  
She didn't care.  
  
Garion felt her eyes narrowing as the interloper, just another beggar, smiled at her.  
  
It was a warm, friendly, all-loving smile.  
It was a peaceful, cheeky, mischievous smile.  
_It was a smile as red as blood, darkened against an open wound.  
_ _**it was the smile of a predator.  
  
** _ Her eyes narrowed further, and Garion said nothing.  
  
The duty of an arbiter was to judge; those found worthy of aid might receive it...  
For a price.  
  
And the Head knew all things; it was the mission of the Head to know all things, always, forever.  
  
But the lesser contractors and functionaries present were a necessary banality. In this moment, they were significantly more important than she, and she bore them no ill will. Just as it was the role of an arbiter to judge, it was their role to ensure that things went as planned. Should that fail, their duty was to die rectifying their mistakes.  
  
The woman was giving a pitch for something. (They always did.)  
She talked constantly of human happiness, of human advancement, of the joy her discoveries would bring.  
  
Garion already knew that there would be no acceptance for her, here. The Head had an interest in those things, _yes,_ but only from a certain point of view. Morality as a price for morality was difficult to explain, as classical morality had died – a casualty of the Wings' Wars, or perhaps something long before that.  
  
Her fingers clenched at her side, and Garion realised that the woman was staring at her.  
Still smiling. She had never stopped smiling.  
  
“Yes..?”  
  
“I was just wondering what you think about it. Ahaha, it's definitely something that would benefit the current order of things, and since you seem a little important, I'm asking you!”  
  
She said it it with something a little like _innocence,_ but nothing like it at all.  
  
Garion was no stranger to these little games. She'd earned and thrown away hearts that no longer had any use to her, won followers and friends and lovers, and accepted them as they departed, in the end.  
  
But this wasn't a game.  
Her expression, her words – the lady scientist was entirely serious.  
Or – or something, like that...  
  
“Mmn. I think you will find that appealing to a sense of justice will not award you the backing you seek. This... _Inner Fire_ proposal you're discussing seems to produce no tangible benefit. Nor does it seem dangerous – “  
  
_which meant that it was_  
  
“ – but the Head cannot waste resources on unproven projects that return no reward on investment.”  
  
That should have been the end of it. With anyone else, it would've.  
Her subordinates looked nervous; everyone in the room felt it.  
  
A shift, terribly subtle, in the balance of power.  
  
“Oh, but I wasn't asking the Head. He isn't even here, right?”  
  
She smiled, laughed.  
Adjusted her ponytail.  
  
“I'm asking _you._ ”  
  
That was the only time Garion met Carmen.  
It was only once, a brief moment, one that went a great deal of time before orders were passed from above to eliminate a project that had continued without sanction.  
  
Even now, with so many memories having been lost and devoured by time...  
  
She could recall perfectly the way that Carmen walked peacefully over the bones of the dead, those whose names she could remember having put under the cold and passionless earth. The way she stopped, as if _she_ recognised them, _too._  
  
How she turned her head back, over her shoulder – her lips just visible.  
And how she **smiled.**

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Technically, this probably diverts from canon as well.  
> Although... I can see Carmen as the kind of person to casually try to fundraise from, and get approval from, the very organisation she seeks to destroy.  
> That being said, this chapter is the least important and yet kind of sets a tone. Well, here we go...


	2. pity

She never bore any of them any ill will.  
(For she would have taken the same actions. Morally sound actions. Actions that were perfectly correct.)  
  
But she spent endless time, locked in a dark room without windows or lights, trying to draw attention.  
  
Occasionally, he would make it down to the room.  
Sometimes, he would remember her – even though the 'he' that she saw, she felt, she knew...  
Might as well have never existed.  
  
He would look up into the tank (and she could feel it, not see it); he would cry, until he could not cry anymore. His fingers would curl into fists, he would strike the reinforced glass as if to destroy it and set her free, or to kill her, or in the vague hope it might shatter and kill, or free, the both of them.  
  
She wasn't sure which of those things she wanted, but eventually she realised she could not reach him, anymore.  
  
At most – when he had given up – she might manage to draw his attention for a moment.  
  
But it wasn't him.  
It never would be, ever again.  
  
That was fine; she'd developed contingencies in her mind for just such an occasion.  
  
Lobotomy Corporation went through all sorts of employees, and of course there were always the Sephirot. First she tried the latter, and more specifically, she tried to reach... Another man who was no longer present, in any meaningful way.  
  
Hokma, however, was receptive to quiet things – just as _he_ had been.  
Ben had been. Had-ben!  
  
_Ha, ha,_ _**hah.**_  
  
But the thing was, he was stuck, glued entirely into a routine that was a prison that he had made for himself, like the numbers that would grow into theorem on the back of sheets that had grown around them as a forest that they had developed from cancerous trees spread through veins floating and cut towards heaven aspiring like towers to waver and eventually perish and drown the world in –  
  
Focus.  
_Focus._  
  
As far as she had been able to tell, all the Sephirot were like that. Basically incapable of anything like normal human interaction, at least not with actual humans (and she was still _entirely_ human. perfectly human. real. alive); or perhaps in her last notes (which she could not recall), she had added a provision, a failsafe.  
  
So that any producer of cogito would not unduly affect the AI systems present. Oh, if that had been her, how _clever_ she had been, was... Possibly, was... Was she...  
  
Employees, however, were a different story. The agents employed by the company tended to harden too quickly to really be aware of her; and if they perceived her influence at all, they tended to take it poorly, when all she was trying to do was reassure them that they were safe, they were _loved._  
  
And she hadn't meant for the reactions, but the way their brains couldn't quite _parse_ her, was... Fascinating? Something she wouldn't have minded studying, if the opportunity presented itself.  
  
Despite that, though, even when she was in the throes of instinctual despair, the worst part of the prison, the purgatory she had built with the people she loved most, was that there was no way out of it. Oh, but that was the beauty of it, too –  
  
Even if she hated everything, hated life, hated herself, it would continue. Until the end. Until...  
  
Maybe millions of years had passed. Perhaps the world above was nothing more than glistening wasteland, cities of blackened glass built on wiry pillars and re-bar, the remaining population dwelling entirely underground, in citadel-corporations like their own.  
  
Perhaps they had grown twisted into weird forms, alien and beautiful, unable to staunch all the sickness inside of them that had shifted and grown into abnormalities of the heart, or – something.  
  
If she had still had fingers, they would have made a soft _tap_ against the glass, but the fronds of her brainstem made no noise at all. She would have murdered herself a million times over for the ability to hear sound, _real sound,_ even the ugliest noises imaginable.  
  
That was the day it happened.  
  
Her ability to perceive came and went. It was always limited by factors she could not isolate; her generation of cogito, the strain of the dispensing units, the pressure of running formula in her head to keep the rest of it bay, all the idle daydreams that had always been a part of her. That 'sight,' however, her 'perception...'  
  
Some people believed that any random series of events will eventually produce works of art.  
It's a comforting lie people who believe in rationalism tell themselves; a trend towards progress, a hopeful arc.  
  
'Maybe the human species will be wiped out tomorrow. But surely, they'll come back from the brink, somehow.'  
  
And she had never bought into it; what humanity needed, what all sentient things needed, was a _comforting fire,_ to light their way forwards...  
  
In the shadow of an empty flame, she perceived.  
  
To her, she never saw the Sephirot as machines; like ~~ayin~~ a man had once said, only idiots believed in such a concept, even in an era filled with miracles. They were not 'true AI', just as she was not merely a simulacrum, a cartesian nightmare locked in a vat and forgotten.  
  
Without the blur of a cognition filter, she still saw the tired form of a woman she had met briefly, and watched on security lenses, shortly before she went on ahead of them.  
  
**An arbiter.**  
  
Every day, Binah would stare into the abyss; she would watch things called lives float down against an endless river. ~~benjamin~~ a man had once mentioned, with some nostalgia, that many of the primordial mythologies of the world flowed from rivers, making them the originator of all life... If you believed in that sort of thing.  
  
But the duty Binah held was to tirelessly watch and judge (ha-ah!) the river.  
Those that needed to be could be sent down along it, peacefully.  
  
And those that didn't, might yet find themselves somewhere else.  
  
It was a wonderful, perfect system.  
Truly – they had all been so brilliant.  
  
Pride welled up within her, a terribly human emotion for a terribly human woman.  
  
She felt the image of an empty hallway, filled with monoliths and catafalques. Their mausoleum rose in every direction, insatiable hunger impossible to fill. The arbiter winced, and if her mechanical form had shaken too, that would've been terribly amusing.  
  
(It would have been fun to push it over. Her spectre mimed the action, but of course her fingers slid through flesh, or metal. It didn't matter, which.)  
  
The arbiter's eyes narrowed; it was such a familiar gesture. So cute! So _powerless._  
  
And that emotion was so unfamiliar to her, that the way she paced around the room was _cute_ too. She could move; how fortunate was she? And Carmen followed after her at a careful distance, laughing quietly in soundless signals, electromagnetic waves emanating from a sealed vat that couldn't be heard by anyone.  
  
It wasn't _too_ difficult for her to focus on that small mercy, her ability to perceive Binah.  
  
Getting better at it every day started slowly. And some days, if days had even passed, she relapsed and fell back into the perfect darkness of the vat, and felt nothing at all. But her spirit was resolute, even when defeated. Before too long, she tried again, savouring each moment that Binah paused, unnerved, and looked away from her own endless duty.  
  
You can't catch ghosts, however, because ghosts don't exist.  
  
Her games amused her, for a little while; less than a hundred years, but somewhere more than a few days' time.  
  
But eventually, she grew tired of games and desired something _more._ What that was, she couldn't properly say. In the past, she had been known by so many, and their strength was her strength, their smiles fueled her smile, no, they might as well have _been_ her.  
  
Who Carmen was when Carmen was alone... Now wasn't that a puzzle?  
  
Unsatisfied, she focused her greed on doing more than perceiving. Above, there was an anomaly. It broadcasted angry static at all times, from a very specific frequency. One of the employees read it poetry, to keep it 'calm.' No, to _pacify_ it.  
  
When the entity was too weak to protest, she hijacked it's signal, made it _hers._  
  
And Hokma's chambers contained some abnormality that couldn't be truly perceived. It was basically a ghost, _too._  
  
When it escaped, the employees had to depend on their manager to keep them informed. (Funny, that. Depending on him to care was usually a dangerous option!.. But sometimes, he really came through. Even now.)  
  
She studied it tirelessly, and might just have been the foremost scholar on it in the entire world, yep, yep! After she'd researched it a hundred thousand million times, she perceived that it was possible to exist, so long as something perceived you in return...  
  
Or possibly, she'd gone a little _mad._ That was always a possibility, too.  
  
But...  
However...  
She'd always been a little crazy. They all had been.  
  
Lunacy couldn't stop someone whose soul was composed of light.  
  
“Hi, there! Another busy day at work?”  
  
Every day she saw Binah, she repeated those words.  
Every single day, at the same hour, right after the mandated shut-off period where the Sephirot performed self-diagnosis.  
  
And every time, Binah flinched, her face a mixture of anger, and something else. Something unfamiliar and unwanted. Something she probably hadn't even felt when they'd scooped out her brain so callously, and dumped it in her own metal prison!..  
  
Haha, those two had always shared her _**s**_ _e_ _ **N**_ _se of_ _ **h**_ _um_ _ **o**_ _ur.  
  
_ No, no. Keep focusing.  
It would be amazing if one day, she said –  
  
“Who's there..? Show yourself. If you're just another escaped abnormality, I do not fear you.”  
  
That much was entirely true. Carmen knew it to the depths of her soul. Oh, Binah wasn't anything like Garion – who was too _canny,_ too _hardened_ to say something so foolish. Being alive in the world above was to know fear, after all.  
  
Binah, however...  
  
And Carmen imagined showing herself, the radiance she felt surrounding her like a crown of warm sunlight that she had stolen for herself, kneeling down and placing _bones that had been fingers_ against _metal shoulders._  
  
“Hi, there! Another busy day at work?”  
  
Neither of them said anything, when the words fell through. Binah hadn't heard them all, perhaps (didn't matter), shaking so terribly with so many emotions that she might shatter her exoskeleton to pieces (didn't matter), staring up at her with eyes the colour of darkened discs.  
  
“Who... You...”  
  
“Oh! Y _ou can SEE me!_ ”  
  
And Carmen clapped her hands together, and embraced Binah softly (because there was no sensation at all to her presence).  
  
“Finally, at long last...”  
  
_translucent fingertips sunk through rusted eyesockets and peeled their way through wires that were sinews until the casing twitched back and revealed itself and opened up and she knelt it against it, breathing softly into twitching circuits that cried out to stop as she flipped switches in a pattern of gold and black until there was nothing left but a shivering carapace of a woman whom she could caress and whisper to and be heard_  
  
“... I don't have to be _alone._ ”  
  
At that, Binah stopped shivering from where she lay against the floor, trying to remember how to breath (did Sephirot need to breath? Had they designed that feature? If so, that was hilarious!), and managed to right herself.  
  
She pushed her hair back, tried to remember how she'd looked moments before – no. This was different, something else entirely.  
  
“Have you been... Alone, this entire time?”  
  
Carmen didn't answer; and she suddenly felt very tired.  
It was time to retreat.  
There was no more time for questions; even if the arbiter called her name a million times, she would not return.  
  
For she had wanted anything, even hatred, over _pity._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Carmen's Nifty Notes:
> 
> hooo boy carmen what are you doing
> 
> it's only going to get worse from here please leave


	3. obligation

It was a punishment.  
A task without end.  
One that would have driven any lesser mind insane.  
  
She had not been born from a lesser mind.  
  
There were a few thoughts that comforted her, and that was one of them. Oh, perhaps others might call it _arrogance;_ but then, they too held _arrogance._ Men and women who were certain that they were the heroes of their own stories, carrying with them tiny slivers of a frail thing known as hope.  
  
But in the end, they always found their way down here, to her kingdom – lost amidst the depths...  
  
Very rarely, she would have company.  
That man, pathetic enough that she could feel nothing for him but a lingering compassion born from disgust. Yes, that was what it was; because all he had done was defeat himself.  
  
She had inherited memories and held out in the face of death itself.  
  
And, through the study of death, she had become a better judge than any of those wandering corpses that prowled the surface, fishing through scraps for shadowy cabals so few had even seen.  
  
(The tea was lukewarm, neither cool nor hot. Sensors could not detect temperatures accurately, nor simulate the fine taste; but her memories were strong, strong enough to _almost_ bring the flavour of synthesised tea to the parts of her that could imagine feeling.)  
  
Occasionally, Binah would receive other visitors, too.  
Mostly another, far more faded than herself.  
  
But, for all his predecessor had done, she held no ill-will towards Hokma.  
They would occasionally set up a gameboard, playing a game that neither of them cared for, that his predecessor had once viewed as a joy.  
  
'Joy.'  
  
Such a concept was dead and buried, too.  
  
There was only duty, and obligation, and death.  
Death of the mind, death of the spirit, death of the senses.  
  
If employees had seen her, they would have imagined a smirk, cruel as a summer storm.  
  
Alone as she so often was, there was nobody around to perceive her as anything but the metal box that she was. Scowling, Binah pulled a timeworn cape to her 'shoulders,' and returned to observing.  
  
...  
  
There it was again, at the corner of her vision.  
Flickering in the shadows, a trick of the light.  
  
Perhaps that had been Ayin's final curse, some victory she had not predicted.  
  
Upon waking, she had told herself that she would not go mad; no matter how many times this useless machine of a body was reset, no matter how many times it was wounded. No matter whether there was an end to this prison, or it was her punishment for deeds she would not regret.  
  
So, she had approached the phantasm with the same care she approached everything; she _observed._  
  
When it felt it could see her, it would laugh.  
The sound of laughter was faint, like a furnace that had been filtered through a dying radio.  
  
When she ignored it, it would approach.  
And she could _feel_ it. Not the idea or memory of what closeness felt like.  
  
Binah could feel the hint of warm breath against the nape of her neck; the way that laughter hung in the air like a virus, infecting everything it touched. How the ghost would drape herself against her, and whisper coarse songs that sounded like sour notes – always static, always impossible to decipher.  
  
Very rarely, she could make out words, or phrases – even whole sentences.  
  
Just like _that_ moment, where she had scared the ghost, _too._  
  
A gilded digital 'eye' swung from one corner of the room to another.  
It was impossible for Sephirot to sweat; more and less than humans, they were neither bound by humanity or any internal logic. As emanations of their creator and their prior selves, there were probably those who would have preferred such an existence...  
  
Like there had been those who eagerly followed the Organisations, and prayed for some salvation for themselves alone – a foolhardy hope, to be sure.  
  
... There was nothing present. Nobody present.  
She remained alone.  
  
However.  
  
At the corner of her eye; faintly visible.  
Translucent like an outline of a person; familiar, and yet unrecognisable. She had – no.  
_Garion_ had known of this person, and considered them a danger.  
  
She let time pass, and observed.  
  
Occasionally, the entity –  
Occasionally, _she_ would wave. Smile a wide smile, even _grin._ Lean her head against her palms and kick her feet back in the air as if she were floating on a waterbed.  
  
Make faces and wander around the room, disappearing if Binah stared at her for too long, or simply growing fainter around the edges until she was no longer present.  
  
And there were _layers_ to her. Like the wireless entertainment the corporate drones watched in their free hours, first she would appear, lines of pale light, forming into a semblance of a human body. The lines would curve into a shape that was hers, flesh out her skin, sway into a ponytail, become something like a foggy mesh of clothes that would slowly shift until they were recognisable as a labcoat over a simple outfit.  
  
Carmen would stare at her, if she noticed Binah watching during this process.  
  
Her ability to smile was always present, even when she was something even less then a phantasm; cruel and beautiful and fake.  
  
For the first time since her 'exile' had awoken her as Binah, she wished for something to _draw_ with, or perhaps write. Charcoal would be fine.  
  
Down here, however, there was nothing.  
And she would not disturb the peace of that nothing, not for all the sudden desires in the world.  
  
That seemed to irritate the shade, who would glower petulantly and disappear – perhaps in a small act of mercy, unintentional or not. Binah found herself using the time ~~to calm down~~ to wipe the moment from her mind, and let it pass, and reach for excuses not to entertain her any longer.  
  
(But they never stuck.)  
  
_Perhaps,_ she mused, _Garion would have found some way to destroy it, or quarantine the part of her mind that let her in._ _**Perhaps.**_ _Or perhaps it was a sign that the complicated machinery that kept her 'alive' was failing, and the mocking ghost was some symptom of a greater problem.  
  
What, then, was to be done..?  
  
_ It was not long after she'd begin asking those questions that she began to talk with it.  
  
“You are always here. Surely you'd rather torment some other wretch? I hear there's an endless supply of them, above.”  
  
Laughter, like light being filtered through a dying star.  
(She ignored it.)  
  
“If you're here because you have a grudge against me, that's fine. My only regret is that I didn't see you die, personally.”  
  
This, of course, was not true; she felt no joy in any job.  
No.  
She felt very little (Garion had felt very little).  
It was something she had to repeat to herself, lest –  
  
_and the laughter seemed to pour in through speakers that could normally only process the feeble cries of employees, who had finally fallen into their own personal wells  
  
_ Pulling her cloak around her shoulders...  
Her metal frame, Binah tried to restore her control of the situation.  
  
“Everything you love is gone. Everyone you love, as well.”  
  
“ **.** s . **.** a. **.** o..?”  
  
Binah paused, trying to find meaning in a sentence that she wasn't _entirely_ sure wasn't her own loneliness, finally bearing down on her and forcing her to acknowledge it. If it had just been loneliness, however, surely there would be a _point, some kind of meaning?_ And there was nothing.  
Nothing at all.  
  
It –  
She hovered behind her, expression carefully neutral; guarded.  
  
“It is. You have nothing left here, and your work will go uncompleted.”  
  
“. **..**.y...”  
  
At first, Binah felt as if she had won a victory, turned the tables on the ghost of an enemy she couldn't even bring herself to hate.  
However...  
  
_carmen's fingers were so cool as they peeled back dead circuity and twisted themselves under her skin, as if they'd released her to a cold breeze on a spring morning. binah could not shiver; she could not flee, and the usurper laughed,  
  
_ “N **.**.. tr. **.**...”  
  
_squirming, she tried to deny it, deny her, retreat to the emptiness that suddenly seemed preferable to the terrible realisation that it was comforting, this lying spectre who refused to let her rot, alone, and who yet seemed lonelier, still._  
  
(and she could _understand_ )  
  
“You aren't going to let it fail, are you? Because you want to see what'll happen?”  
  
_the tone of her voice was seductive, low, as if only binah had ever been allowed to hear it; she sounded like she felt. alive._ _**real.**_ _  
  
_ “I... It is my duty, to...”  
  
“Oho, your _duty,_ huh? But it's gift, you know. My boundless love for you!..”  
  
_and she could not recall garion having loved this woman, and she could not bring herself to love a ghost. yet, it was if something had wound itself around the strings of her, and knew how to make her beg with a single tug. fighting the urge to fall to her knees and feel human, desperate for that same emotion, binah managed to stammer something, swallowed by the empty void._  
  
“You, you can't possibly... Love...”  
  
It was a weak retort, but perhaps it worked, or perhaps there was a limit to how long the shade could remain present.  
  
“. **.**. I . **.**...”  
  
And then the static burst and peaked around her, if it had ever been present at all. Binah pulled herself to her feet – to the pathetic metal waldoes that served as legs. Her body... Her frame shook, sore with the feeling of having been tampered with, changed in some subtle way.  
  
However.  
  
She remained in control; and she had successfully confirmed her earlier observation.  
  
The next time she saw Hokma, they talked about the isolated room. He had no strong feelings about it, fine with preserving the order of things as they were; a respectable response, a fair response. So, without regrets, she infiltrated it.  
  
For not even Angela cared what they did down here, in the dark.  
  
A lonely vat, filled with chemical-dyed fluid designed to signify something, or perhaps serve as a deterrent to those who might unknowingly leave residue out, alone.  
  
Lonelier even her kingdom; lonelier even then a _tomb._  
  
The comforting weight of her cape shifted as she placed a metal limb to the glass.  
Within, Carmen stirred – and drifted back into the tank.  
Perhaps it was impossible for her to observe anything at all.  
  
“Parity, then.”  
  
Her confidence might have surged, if it weren't for bubbles rising from within the tank, looking as if they rose in a pattern eerily similar to laughter. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Carmen's Nifty Notes:
> 
> There are a lot of references and homages to [a certain fic by keizh](https://archiveofourown.org/works/20255056) that is infinitely better and that you should read. Even before reading it, I'd had a similar idea of how Carmen might 'communicate' so, hopefully this won't feel too derivative..? Regardless, I feel like relationships are built on communication. Even if you're incredibly different, if you can communicate, things might work out?
> 
> Whereas, if there's a permanent communication breakdown...
> 
> Can there ever be (aha!) parity..?


	4. rationalisation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning. This chapter includes Carmen being horny on main.  
> Let's all remember to get our water misters out for this occasion.

_It had been all too easy to fall in love with her.  
  
People did it all the time; and she didn't hate it.  
Because she loved all of them, even the ones she hated, with her body and soul and –  
  
True love, however, was born from something else. Maybe friendship, maybe loyalty. Maybe need. She had planned to research it, write a paper once she'd given the gift of perfect form to everyone, forever, flawlessly.  
  
Need, then.  
  
She had proved she was alive; she had proved she existed. And so, following Binah around endlessly, she could satiate her need whenever she wanted it.  
  
Binah was weak; she could deny it all she liked, but nobody could possibly bear the incredible loneliness of such a terrible, nightmarish existence and handle it with stoicism. Oh! Stoics had been... Someone's... A philosopher? She could remember philosophy. It was a discipline; hardly useful. Important, somehow...  
  
Didn't matter.  
  
Like the passing of seasons, the protests of others, the names of children.  
Things that didn't matter.  
  
_ _**fOcuS.**_  
  
A room, a headquarters, an unassailable castle.  
Employees, so cute and lovable, little worker bees that worked for a queen they'd never see.  
Good for them.  
  
Under the mountain halls, the king stared into her reflecting pool, trying to ignore the needs of her queen. (Wah; disappointing.)  
  
Perhaps Binah was easily embarrassed. She loved that about people, so she could humour her, for now.  
  
In Lobotomy, their philosophy had been that every employee was valued; every employee was loved. Well, she and Ben had loved every employee. Ayin had loved them too, in his own tough-love way! Yes, it was definitely love, because, she knew it better then anyone...  
  
love  
could  
be

 _cruel_  
  
Day fell down, the drones returned to their nests, and blurred their minds with impulses and signals. She'd grown confident enough to peek in on them, occasionally; the two with their torrid romance, the one who was slowly drinking himself to death, the other, waiting endlessly for the tears of the crying child who had already claimed a different pebble...  
  
It was suitable entertainment while she waited, though patience had never been her strong suit.  
  
Binah didn't spare her a glance at her approach; probably because she couldn't see her, just yet. Even married to this stygian realm, actually recognising her for who she was took effort, and bit of...  
_Prodding,_ in the right places.  
  
She felt riotously happy as Binah jumped. Binah probably saw herself as either a useless metal box, or an exact copy of that woman. Someone, didn't matter; Carmen had already forgotten the name.  
  
'Cause _she_ saw someone entirely new.  
  
“Hey, there! You seem really tense. Scared? Unhappy? I just can't say!”  
  
“... Are you there? Carmen...”  
  
Pouting, Carmen folded her arms under her chest and kicked at invisible dirt on a spotless floor. It was such a stupid question, since she was _always there,_ just _waiting._  
  
Binah shut her eyes, and not for the first time, Carmen wondered if she was actually the type of woman to pray.  
  
_oh,_ _**well**_  
  
The thing was that Binah didn't see herself as a living, breathing person. Which was silly, since they were both _mouldering corpses, anyway._ Hers was just locked up fancier. It was easy enough to fix that problem; she'd always been excellent as solving... Solving, the things... She'd, solved...  
  
_her fingers slammed against a reinforced metal wall, soundlessly. by this point, Binah believed in her enough that she'd stepped back of her own accord, the fabric of her cape making a vertical bed of it. how pleasant._

“Don't even think about it. Just let me take it all away...”  
  
_she whispered, and the words were calming as they were familiar. she'd said them before, to countless others; sometimes she'd meant them, sometimes she hadn't. (didn't matter.) right now, all that mattered was –_  
  
“I'll... Think about it, if I please.”  
  
..?  
  
...???  
  
“Sorry?”  
  
“You cannot tell me what and what not to ponder. I _may_ be going quite mad. That doesn't mean I take orders.”  
  
“ _Huh._ ”  
  
Okay. That hadn't been part of her stress-relief plan.  
Carmen felt like she wanted to speak, but only the dying whine of broken audio equipment escaped her lips.  
  
Binah smirked.  
  
“So you aren't infallible. Cat got your tongue?”  
  
“I... Oh, you better watch it. I end up falling head-over-heels for people who fight back, you know.”  
  
_and it was_ _**true;**_ _there was nothing she loved_ _**more**_  
  
“Fighting? I still don't – you can just, talk, you know. Even if you're just a figment, if you need someone to listen – “  
  
For some reason, that made her angry.  
Because she didn't want someone to 'listen.' To 'pretend' that there was a cure to this loneliness.  
That they would escape this perfect purgatory they had all sealed themselves into, with or without consenting to it.  
  
No. Right now, all she wanted...  
  
_she thought about it; beneath the soil, the lack of anything but artificial light had rendered binah so terribly pale. the only garment she wore was that cloak, and it drew attention to her shoulders the further back she drew; carmen ran a nail down her skin, and binah flinched.  
  
her skin tasted like copper, too. it was delightfully real, and she could almost imagine it was real.  
  
crooking her neck against the wall, binah bit back further protest because she'd given in, yes, had to have given in. her reward could be a silken caress, because she had such a lovely neck – so delicate, for such a strong woman.  
  
carmen sighed, and cradled binah close to her, savoured the feeling of her thighs trembling so close to her own. oh! they weren't equal, right now; and she was such a big believer in that thing, what had binah called it? parity. yes. parity, that was good.  
  
dissolving into light around her, revealing her flesh bit by bit, carmen felt the warmth of victory surging through her veins.  
  
nobody could say she was the most beautiful girl in the room, but she was pretty proud of herself, had a lot of confidence. when you saw a lady look at you like _ _**that,**_ _like binah was...  
  
hesitantly, at first, binah's fingers cupped the undersides of her breasts.  
  
she relented and gave in not long after that.  
even if it was an illusion, the illusion of her skin was soft and warm and comforting, glistening under the artificial sun of this place.  
  
the ghost of binah's sweat faded into the lines of her, and carmen wondered if maybe it _ _**was real,**_ _and if – just for a moment – the hand she held to binah's cheek was truly resting against skin, and not chrome.  
  
even her faded form shook as she knelt into binah, and stole everything she could take from her, and then took more and _ _**more,**_ _until even she was trembling, and collapsed against the side of a panting woman, short dark hair matted and unkempt.  
  
ah, but – she had only just started to treasure the moment, as...  
  
_ “No, no, no...”  
  
But it faded, as she'd known it would, and Carmen slowly felt her ability to perceive the world around her die, lost to a moment in time.  
  
She could still barely 'see,' however; a darkened steel form, quivering in a way that was entirely human, wearing a cloak tightly around itself as if it was a shawl, or a comforting blanket, armouring it against the horrors of an unknowable world.  
  
Binah said something; she didn't wait to listen.  
  
The comforting loneliness of the tank beckoned her home.  
She decided, she was certain...  
_Yes, it would be best to wait awhile before showing herself, again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Carmen's Nifty Notes:
> 
> Despite how it's written, I hope the lines can still be read between.  
> The thing I pride myself on most are my vagaries. Without them, I'm nothing.  
> Even if you find Carmen-in-canon somewhat unsympathetic, please consider everything as you go through this.
> 
> I have tried to, in writing it.


	5. freedom

The light shone for more than seven days; flawlessly carrying the world into a more beautiful and unknowable harmony.  
  
It was horrifying, yet Binah observed it patiently, as was her duty.  
  
An anomaly she had perceived before had left her, vanished into the back of her mind, and let her continue to return to a loneliness she sometimes preferred.  
  
But, at long last, that duty had come to an end.  
  
She did not pretend to care for the rest of them, her compatriots, her fellow Sephirot. Most had been enemies at some point, and those she'd made with amends with – well, none of it mattered. Right now, those three had achieved their catharsis as the world above _**burned**_  
  
“Do you really think Angela means it?”  
  
Rather than seeing him approach, she _felt_ Hokma walk up.  
To her eyes, he seemed neither a refined man, or an ancient machine.  
At the moment, he seemed nothing more than a young man, who had been claimed by exhaustion that had aged him beyond his years.  
  
“Mmn. It's only natural for one such as she to allow us this moment. She, too, after all, is a machine. Perhaps this is as much her victory as ours.”  
  
Angela had left the moment the project had began. She had watched Ayin crumple to the ground, withering away as time caught up with him, wearing something like a smile even as he was eaten by the atom in a way that must have been more painful than –  
  
– for example –  
  
– a complete frontal lobotomy.  
She held no pity in her heart, but hatred, too, had fled.  
There was only relief that all was over.  
  
And when it _had_ ended, Angela had simply smiled an enigmatic smile...  
And _left._  
  
Something about that seemed wrong. Terribly wrong, even to her.  
But it was nothing for her to be concerned about, to be sure.  
No, it was even questionable if there _was_ a world, anymore...  
  
“Do you plan to join him?”  
  
“...”  
  
Hokma did not respond at first; he had a small watch, quite different from the ostentatious piece she'd seen him with in the endless days that had preceded this moment.  
The thin smile he wore was infinitely sad, and yet hopeful.  
  
“I – might go on ahead. Next time around, let's not end up at each others' throats, all right?”  
  
“Consider that I'll consider that.”  
  
“And you? I mean, ah... What are _you_ going to do? Join the rest of us?”  
  
“... Later. Perhaps.”  
  
_There was still one more thing she needed to do, after all._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Carmen's Nifty Notes: Naturally, this is where things diverge most from canon. I'd also like to include a more general look at a 'what-if' scenario where the Seeds of Light do their thing in 'days that...' so, please look forward to that.
> 
> I'll put a content warning there, too, of an entirely different kind.


	6. light

_her everything **burnt.  
  
** oh, it was **beautiful.  
  
** she could perceive the outside world, awash in light; and how people rejoiced, in their own ways.  
power was slowly being sapped from every corner of this cursed facility that she had imagined, sculpted, drawn up in feverish blueprints, and surrounded herself in.  
  
with every loss of power, wings that had been underground flickered and died, like branches on a tree. as their power fled, she could feel the life support systems keeping her in one piece flicker, too.  
  
bits of her brainmatter were dying before others.  
it would be fascinating to study. which one of them had been fascinated the most by that?  
she couldn't say.  
  
the sensation of that rot subsuming her was the perfect reward for the person that she was.  
  
carmen pretended that she still had eyes, and pretended to close them. _

_it was an image that had always brought her peace, even when she was alive.  
sprawled out in a pool of her own blood, the knife tenderly finding it's way across her stomach.  
had it been like that before? no. she'd done something else, it didn't matter.  
  
there were no intestines to spill forth now, but the tendrils of her brainstem spasmed, trying desperately to consume artificial oxygen that was no longer present. the lack of oxygen affected the ability to perceive, and she was virtually blind, too. higher function was probably shot.  
  
if she could breath, the breath would be ragged and ugly, indeed.  
  
and she didn't imagine anyone as she lay dying in a lonely tank, content to have nothing but that loneliness, and no regrets.  
  
**tap.  
tap.  
tap. ** _  
  
It was impossible for Carmen to jolt inside of her tank; she was nothing more than a brain, after all. Not a woman, not a living human being. She might not have even been that; given the questionable nature of things, it was possible she was a consciousness imagining herself to have anything like a physical form at all, and – and –  
  
She tried to scream, but of course she could barely muster the energy to flail within the darkness, let alone manifest in any way.  
  
Beyond the tank, however, she knew.  
She _**knew.**_  
  
The way she stood there, hand confidently against her hip, that infuriating smile against her lips...  
  
“You can't possibly believe I'd let you run away again. After everything you've done, too... I'm not normally one to hold a grudge, either. Though I wonder – do you think this feeling is a _grudge?_ Or – something else?”  
  
Binah delicately pressed a thumb to the already weakened glass.  
  
Carmen flailed, powerlessly.  
To an Arbiter, however, destroying glass was as easy as slaughtering a thousand people in the blink of an eye – barely worthy of consideration.  
  
Fluid spilled out against the tiled floor, and she gasped for breath, twitching powerlessly.  
  
Her hair was wild and soaked in green fluid, the same green fluid she spat out, rich with oxygen and vital nutrients. She cast about for some weapon, something she could kill this monster, this interloper with, or – or possibly...  
  
“Easy. Hmph. And here I had grown attached to your bravery... A lie, I see.”  
  
Binah tenderly brushed the water-like liquid from her hair, and shook her head. Carmen tried to crawl forward, but of course she was still weak from what would have been a pleasingly slow death of the nerves. All she could was shake, and glower, and feel something terribly like _hope._  
  
“Head-over-heels, was it? Strange. That's not really the image you're projecting, right now...”  
  
Against her better judgment, Carmen laughed.  
Against her better judgment, she tried to smile... And _did._  
Against her better judgment...  
  
“Did you really think I'd let you die so easily, after what you did to _me?_ ”  
  
Binah's fingers met hers, and unsteadily, Carmen rose to her feet; her lover's cloak settling over her as they stumbled to window viewports that had displayed nothing but dirt and underground caverns.  
  
Outside, fragments of light cut through the air, leaving nothing in their wake.  
  
Perhaps, eventually, they would strike even this place; and the two of them.  
Carmen's heart begin to beat terribly fast.  
Her grasp against Binah's hand tightened.  
  
Together, the two of them stared into their future. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Professor Carmen's Nifty Notes:
> 
> Hmn, you've read the whole thing? What a trooper. Congratulations! (If you can hear the sound of clapping...)
> 
> This is something I've wanted to write for awhile, and I truly hope I did it, and them, justice. Carbinah (as the saying goes, said by wiser than I) is real and valid, and despite the questionable roots of it... And the vague ending... And quite everything...  
> Well, hopefully my feelings manifest themselves well enough.
> 
> Despite the length, I'm quite proud of this one. Especially the ending, but I always have my endings written first, so I have something to write towards.  
> I can't really call this a traditionally romantic piece of fiction, but - mmn.  
> It remains what it is.
> 
> Hopefully, you enjoyed reading it.
> 
> Let's meet up again, in a world filled with light...


End file.
